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New Marine Tank!!

Just wanted to let you all know that me and my partner have decided to set up a new marine tank!

I've wanted a marine tank for years. I kept central and south american cichlids for about 10 years so I'm not completely new to fishkeeping.

We got a 280 litre Aqua One 'Regency' tank with a sump down below. It came with a 300w heater and a 3600 litre/hour pump.

We purchased 2 bags of sand, one is live sand which has all the beneficial bacteria to help the tank begin it's nitrogen cycle and the other is just normal aragonite sand. We also got 5.5 kg of live rock but we're looking at getting some more.

We spent some time last night mixing up all our salt water to the right temperature and salinity and then filling the tank. I placed our live rock in and tried to make a bit of a tower so the fish have places to hide in the future!

Now comes the hard part! We have to leave the lights off for 4-6 weeks to let the tank cycle. The bloke at the petshop said the liverock is already 2 weeks cycled so hopefully this means it will cut down waiting time for us!? I'll just have to keep an eye out for that ammonia spike and then finally we'll be good to go for some livestock.

We've decided out of all the fish to start with we have to have a couple of clown fish (nemo's) and we will go from there. I want to get an anemone because the clownfish and anemone have a symbiotic relationship and use eachother to survive. We will also look at a few shrimp and other soft corals.

I have to say I'm pretty pumped! Can't wait to be able to finally put some fish and corals in! But waiting is part of it, I could put them all in today they'll just die so that's all a big waste!

I'll update this later with pictures and keep you guys posted on the progress!